The Effect of the DC School Voucher Program on College Enrollment

E D U C A T I O N P O L I C Y P R OG R A M R E S E A R C H R E P O R T The Effect of the DC School Voucher Program on College Enrollment Matthew M. Chingos February 2018 A B O U T T H E U R B A N I N S TI T U T E The nonprofit Urban Institute is dedicated to elevating the debate on social and economic policy. For nearly five decades, Urban scholars have conducted research and offered evidence-based solutions that improve lives and strengthen communities across a rapidly urbanizing world. Their objective research helps expand opportunities for all, reduce hardship among the most vulnerable, and strengthen the effectiveness of the public sector. Copyright © February 2018. Urban Institute. Permission is granted for reproduction of this file, with attribution to the Urban Institute. Cover image by Tim Meko. Contents Acknowledgments iv Executive Summary v The Effect of the DC School Voucher Program on College Enrollment 1 Background on the Opportunity Scholarship Program 2 Data and Methods 5 Student Characteristics and Program Participation 7 Results 8 Conclusions 11 Appendix 13 Notes 15 References 17 About the Author 18 Statement of Independence 19 IV A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S Acknowledgments This report was funded by the Bill and Susan Oberndorf Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Robertson Foundation, Kate and Bill Duhamel, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, and the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation. We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. The views expressed are those of the author and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of Urban experts. Further information on the Urban Institute’s funding principles is available at https://www.urban.org/aboutus/our-funding/funding-principles. I thank Mark Dynarski, Brian Kisida, and Martin West for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this report. I also thank Serving Our Children (especially Jackie Olcott and Rachel Sotsky) and the National Student Clearinghouse for sharing the data used in this study, and Kristin Blagg, Victoria Lee, and Warren Lewis for excellent work on various aspects of this project. E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y V Executive Summary Washington, DC’s, Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), the only federally funded voucher program in the United States, has provided private-school scholarships to low-income students in DC since 2004. The program is small, but it has received significant attention in national debates over private school choice and has been the subject of rigorous evaluations mandated by Congress. This study is the first look at OSP participants’ college enrollment outcomes, measured using administrative data from the National Student Clearinghouse. I measure the effect of the OSP by comparing the college enrollment rates of students who were offered a scholarship in lotteries held in 2004 and 2005 with those of students who applied but did not win a scholarship. I find that students who won scholarships to attend private schools were not significantly more or less likely to enroll in college than students who did not. These are the first experimental estimates of the impact of a publicly funded private school choice program on college enrollment. The Effect of the DC School Voucher Program on College Enrollment The number of publicly funded private-school scholarships awarded to US children has increased rapidly, from less than 150,000 in 2004 to more than 400,000 in 2017 (EdChoice 2017). School voucher programs are almost exclusively enacted by state and local governments. The only federal program is Washington, DC’s, Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which was authorized by Congress in 2004. Congress specifically cited concerns about the DC public school system, including lackluster performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, when it created OSP.1 The OSP has been a political football in national debates over private school choice. The program was closed to new participants under the Obama administration and a Democratic Congress in 2009, and then reauthorized in 2011 and 2017 by a Republican-led Congresses as part of appropriations bills. The OSP is currently part of legislation that provides $45 million to DC schools, with $15 million going to the voucher program and $30 million split between the traditional school district and public charter schools. This three-sector arrangement dates to the creation of the program, and the notion that investments should be made in traditional public and charter schools while giving low-income students immediate alternatives was instrumental in gaining the support of local officials (Hsu 2004). The DC program is one of a small number of private school choice programs that have now been in place long enough that student outcom